Friday, November 25, 2011

Ubuntu starting to Fade Behind Fedora?

There is no question that Ubuntu dominated the desktop Linux world over the past few years. Yet if recent statistics from distrowatch.com are to believed, then the Ubuntu star is starting to fade.  Even Linux Mint, which overtook Ubuntu in the number of times.  In the statistics, you can also see that Fedora is rising fast.  I am inching toward giving Fedora a try, at least on a live CD, just to see what it has to offer.  I am fairly sure I will run into hardware issues, since some of my machines are a little bit more of the vintage kind of PC!

This certainly does not mean that the number of desktop Linux Mint users, or even Fedora users now outnumber Ubuntu users. But it is strong indication that Ubuntu users are unhappy with the complete devotionby Canonical to the Unity desktop.

The Unity interface is something that I abandoned earlier this week in favor of GNOME Classic on every single one of my computers.  Even my netbook is now GNOME  classic.   Yet, even with the switch back to GNOME, there was no need for me  to completely leave Ubuntu.  I simply installed GNOME from the Ubuntu Software Center and moved on with my life.

It is amazing that I lasted for so long with the slow Unity interface!  My computer is so much faster and zippier with GNOME.  Then again, these are older PC.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Ubuntu Looks to Mobile Operating System for Tablets

Canonical has asked member developers to provide their thoughts and ideas on creating a mobile version of the popular Ubuntu operating system.

The company wants to jump into the mobile arena and create software that will run on smart phones, tablets, smart TV's by the year 2014.  By then, maybe most of the kinks that are in the Unity interface will have been worked out. Canonical still has plans to have a smoother user experience over the next few releases.

The Ubuntu user interface has gone through a lot of changes in the past few months. Mark Shuttleworth has received a lot of negative feedback since the introduction of the Unity interface.

It is likely that Canonical will have a tough time selling its Unity interface to tablet makers. It is unlikely hardware makers will be willing to stake their money on the Unity interface.  This interface is going to have  two more year worth of developing a 'bad reputation' by many unhappy and vocal Linux users.  It will not matter if things in Unity are going to get fixed, the damage has been done.

I suspect that the best the Canonical could hope for is to find some obscure Chinese company that makes cheap tablets to install  an Ubuntu operating system, and try to sell them on some obscure website that typical web surfers will never find.  Pretty much the same story for Canonical as it tried to enter the desktop and laptop OEM market a couple of years ago.

Maybe by 2014, things will be different....

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Next Generation Apple TV May Coming Soon. After Christmas?

I picked up an Apple TV about a year ago and have been pretty pleased with its performance. I do not use iTunes much though, just Netflix.

I am not much of an Apple Fanboy, and this being a blog mainly about Ubuntu Linux it may seem a bit of a digression to post about something that Apple makes.  But, Amazon and Best Buy lowered the price for Apple TV's down to $89.  This is likely to get more units sold for the holiday season and to clear out inventory to get ready for the next generation.

Internet rumors are flying that Apple is working on, or has already perfected some sort of magical television device that may be integrated with its Siri software.  It probably will not appear before Christmas, as the holiday shopping season has begun and the Black Friday sales advertisements have already hit the streets.  Perhaps we can look toward the first or second quarter 2012 for some kind of announcement from Apple.  But, I could be wrong?

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Install Firefox 8 on an Older Ubuntu Linux PC

Firefox 8 has hit the streets, and if you can not wait to get it up and running on your older version of Ubuntu, then you can run these commands at a prompt to get Firefox installed and running on your Ubuntu PC.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install Firefox language-pack-en language-pack-en-base

There are a number of enhancements that have been added to Firefox 8. Twitter had been added to the search bar and there is more support of locals.  Firefox should also be even faster and more responsive.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Changes Slowly Being Announced for Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

Techdrivin.com is reporting that there will be at least significant changes in the next long term release of Ubuntu LTS , version 12.04 Precise Pangolin.

Here are the changes in the next LTS release of Ubuntu in a nutshell:

1. Canonical flip-flips and brings Rhythmbox back!
2. Precise Pangolin will be too big for a CD!
3. 64 Bit all the way for default download.
4. Mono is gono!
5. Sofware Center revamped...again...
6  LightLDM login screen will be improved.

There is also hope that the Unity user interface will have more improvements.  Right now, I am on the cusp of switching to Linux Mint Debian, but that is is a post for another day, or maybe I will wait a few months and see what is in store with Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin.

Source:
http://www.techdrivein.com/2011/11/6-key-changes-in-next-ubuntu-1204_12.html

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Security Updates For Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

I use an old Dell 5150 Laptop that runs Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.  The PC runs perfect with this most stable version of Ubuntu Linux.  Just recently there have been a whole slew of Linux kernel updates that have become available for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS to fix some security flaws.

Most of the fixes concerned how the linux kernel handles internal packet traffic that could lead to a 'denial of service.'  Other fixes dealt with privacy issues among users.

Be sure to get your Ubuntu kernel updated as soon as possible through the software updater.  You can see which kernel you are using by opening up a command line and running this command:   uname -a


A line in information about your system will return and you should see that you are running the kernel version: Linux-image 2.6.32-35 or higher.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

SD Card for Acer Aspire One 532H-2326 In Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot

In the past, I have been having trouble with using the SD card on my Acer Aspire One 532H-2326 netbook with Ubuntu 11.10.  Last month I updated to Oneiric Ocelot Ubuntu 11.10 and while it is taking time for me to get used to the Unity interface, I am happy to report that the SD card reader is now working just fine with this latest version of Ubuntu.

I had a SD card in a digital camera that I recently took some pictures on, and normally I would boot to Windows 7 to transfer the pics.  But on a whim I decided to give the latest version of Ubuntu a try on my netbook, and voila, it recognized the SD card and my pictures transferred over just fine.

With the latest version of Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot it would seem that just about every single feature is working, except for FN-F2, which turns the wireless on and off.